This past Friday, my mom and I came home from grocery shopping. As we were unloading all the groceries and bringing them in the house, it was like a cartoon...all that was needed was to have my mother on the chair screeching, "Eek a mouse!" I guess our roles are now relegated to her being the spider/bug killer and me being the mouse catcher/disposer of traps.
She points him out, and as I try to shoo him out the door he gets into the dining room. You would think this tiny, furry, 2" long creature was 6 feet tall and 160 lbs with the way she was acting. He decides to hide out underneath a piece of furniture. I think she actually might have been afraid to go to sleep that night.
I tell my mom, "I'll go get some glue traps while you put the groceries away and start the water for dinner" (we were having pasta), and off I went. I get back and she is still rather panic stricken that we have rodents in the house. We've had them in the basement before, but until recently they have never been in the living areas of the first floor.
ANYWAY, so I come home with 2 boxes of glue traps. We open one box and put three of the traps out in the dining room and family room with the fourth in the basement.
Morning comes, and two of the traps have a mouse in them. Oh yay!!! Mice are stuck, but still alive, so you can see the muscles in their backs working as they realize the traps are going to be disposed of. Mom holds the bag open for me while I sweep the trap into a dustpan and drop it in the bag. OK, first mouse is disposed of. I go to the second trap, sweep the struggling mouse into the dustpan, and drop him into the bag too. Then the two mice start squeaking....I can only imagine one yelling at the other "you got me into this...you said this would be a warm, safe place to raise our family....". We quickly tie the bag shut and dispose of it in the garbage can in the shed, with the mice wiggling and squeaking with each step.... Since the other two traps are empty, we leave them where they are.
So this morning (Sunday), mom sees something wiggling out of the corner of her eye. "Ellen," she yells, "I think we caught another mouse...come get rid of it and I'll take the bag out as I leave for church". I get in the family room and there is not one mouse but TWO stuck to the trap (along with the spider plant). I snip the plant branch, sweep up the trap, and get it out of the house. I check the trap in the basement, and it isn't where I put it. "Mom," I yell, "Did you push the trap further back?" "No," she replies. So I get the broom, and we pull it out, and there is a ton of dust/lint on it, and I can see where a tail may have gotten stuck, but it appears that he was able to free himself and push/pull the trap away from where I had placed it. That is a strong freakin' mouse! Looks like for the basement we are going to need the bigger, stronger rat-sized glue traps.
I hate glue traps because they don't kill the mouse, but they are far more effective than the snap traps. I don't find them to be humane, but I would rather get the mouse and dispose of him before he breeds any more than he already has. I'm allergic to cats, so I can't borrow someone's mouser for a week or so.
We had hardwood floors put in about a year ago, and that is when the mice started showing up upstairs. I wonder if a hole was created that they are getting through. I really don't want to have to call an exterminator. *sigh*
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